Deaconess opens renal care center

Submitted by Deaconess Hospital
A new Medical/Renal Care Center is opening at the Downtown Deaconess Hospital. This shows the Unit 55 and 56 Suite. The center can accommodate 39 patients and has a staff of about 90 associates, including nurses, patient-care technicians and clerical workers.

Submitted by Deaconess Hospital
A new Medical/Renal Care Center is opening at the Downtown Deaconess Hospital. This shows the Dialysis area.

Sonja Frisby

Submitted by Deaconess Hospital
A new Medical/Renal Care Center is opening at the Downtown Deaconess Hospital. This shows the nurses station.

Submitted by Deaconess Hospital
A new Medical/Renal Care Center is opening at the Downtown Deaconess Hospital. This shows the Unit 55 and 56 Suite.

Submitted by Deaconess Hospital
A new Medical/Renal Care Center is opening at the Downtown Deaconess Hospital. This shows the Unit 55 and 56.

A new Medical/Renal Care Center, complete with a homelike suite for accommodating a patient and her family, begins operating at the Downtown Deaconess Hospital campus today, following a public open house Wednesday.

Patients were being moved into the center starting at 7 a.m. today.

The center can accommodate 39 patients and has a staff of about 90 associates, including nurses, patient-care technicians and clerical workers.

Those two soon-to-be-vacant units will be used in the future for staging for further remodeling, said Sonja Frisby, department manager for the new center which includes all private rooms.

The Suite 5600 features what the hospital is calling ''an Amenites Suite," offering a patient room, a family living room, a family bedroom and a family bathroom.

The specialty suite allows a patient to receive the same care, but with extra space for the comfort and convenience of the patient's family," said Frisby, a Deaconess associate 13 1/2 years who is both a registered nurse and a board-certified nurse executive.

The new center also offers a kidney dialysis suite for accommodating five patients, up one patient from the old location, and a "Clean Common Area," a large room where all needs for the patient and staff are stored.

"We won't have to go from location to location looking for the supplies any longer," said Frisby.

The center also cares for patients with general medical conditions and those needing cardiac monitoring.

All patients cared for in the new center are inpatient patients.

Construction on the new center took about six months. It was planned for over a year.